If a character has either the magic attribute or resonance attribute and losses essence during game place both the current attribute and it's maximum are decreased.
What I'm wondering is how is this worked during character creation?
If the character has 5.2 essence, then the characters max magic or resonance is 5.
How is increasing that stat worked for BP/Karma builds?
You start with a 1, pay 10 bp to go to a 2 modified to a 1 or a 2?
Looking at the way the SR4CG_DK spread sheet works going from a 1 to 2 costs 10 bp but leaves you with a modified attribute of 1.
The chummer program does the same thing.
So you got nothing for those 10 bp. Which just doesn't seem right to me.
I would think it should just lower your max and make it so you can only increase it up to that new max with the extra cost on going to a 5.

Is this really the correct way to do it?
I would have thought it would just go from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on with going to a 5 costing 25 bp.

After game play starts how much does it cost to increase? Do you use the unmodified or modified?

Now how do you deal with Latent Technomancer or Latent Awakening?

If you have an essence of 5.2 and you have either of these you still start with 1 point of magic or resonance and a max of 5.
What does it cost to increase it to a 2? Do you have to increase it twice to an unmodified 3 to get an effective 2?
Effectively making the attribute cost 25 points to increase it from a 1 to a 2.

Again is this correct?

I should add would having lost 2 points in either attribute because of essence loss mean you have to increase it 3 times before it actually goes up by 1 point?

While some people do it the other way to gain advantage, I think it's generally held that you do Attribs first (and qualities), then augmentation. So you must pre-increase to compensate for the decrease you know is coming, as it were.

In play, IIRC you use the current rating for the karma cost calculation.

Latent Awakening gives a Magic of 1 when it's activated in play, regardless. Essence loss still limits your Max, and Essence < 1 means the quality's 'dead'. Latent Techno should be identical, for Resonance.

Standard, during creation: You get hosed. You buy Attributes (including Magic, etc) up, and then you apply gear. So if you buy your Magic to 6, and then get a Cyberarm installed, you lose a Magic point and now have 5 (but still paid full points to get it to 6, there's no refund or anything zany like that). So mixing augmentation and mojo during character creation is a tricky business, and best handled very carefully (and, sadly, often with an eye towards cold, hard, efficiency over character concept or what-not).

Latent stuff: You get hosed a lot less. When you Awaken, you get a Magic of 1 (ignoring any chrome or bioware or what-have-you). Your maximum is lowered as normal, but you don't Awaken and then just fizzle out a picosecond later when it catches up to you, or something. If a stone-cold cybered-up killer with an Essence of 1 hits his Latent Awakening, he gets a Magic of 1, and can then build up from there (with the normal costs for Initiation, increasing an attribute, etc).

This is, indeed, the common method... I wish it were the other way around. And I have seen valid arguments for it...

It's the only fair way. I can't even imagine the 'magicrun' consequences otherwise.

In a lot of ways, yes... BUT, playing Devil's Advocate here for a second, is it fair for the Essence 1 Hacker to all of a sudden come into his magical abilities and then strengthen them at the exclusion of everything else? 14 Karma for Spellcasting 3, 13 Karma for Initiation, 10 Karma for Magic 2, and 25 Karma for 5 Spells? Has its own Drawbacks, to be sure, but is it Fair?

For what it is worth, though. I agree with you on this...

Both the speadsheet and the chummer program make you pay karma to increase the stat with latent, and yet modify it down based on essence loss.
This is part of the confusion I'm having I guess.

What about karma cost for increasing the stat?
If you bought a magic attribute of 5 during creation and it was decreased down to a 4 because of essence loss do you pay 25 karma to increase it to a 5 or do you pay 30?
Both the sheet and the program make you pay the same way the character creation works.

If you think it's unfair and aren't trying to min/max your mage, talk to your GM. Most are way more lenient than RAW. I think that's by design.

Option 1: You would pay 25 Karma to raise it back to a 5.
Option 2: Or you would pay 30...

I have seen tables do it both ways.
I prefer option 1 above.

The Latent qualities are basically a wild card, Tymeaus. It all depends on the GM, and we can't really guess what happens after chargen. Still, it takes a lot of karma to start from 1 and nothing (spells/CFs/etc.).

ShadowWalker, karma increase cost should be based on the current real attribute. Magic/Res loss isn't 'virtual'; you're for-real at a 5 Magic after you take 'ware on your 6. So, 6 is the real new rating when you upgrade. (This is post-creation; creation, even with Karmagen, should be paid pre-'ware.)

I'm just trying to get my head around the way the "rules" say it's supposed to be done.
For me it's not a question of being fair or unfair, it's more logic, and paying to get nothing doesn't seem logical to me.

Yeah, I know that... it is just interesting that they chose to go that route is all.



This is How I have always understood it as well. Which is why we do it that way. I have heard arguments for the reverse, however, and they do tend to make a little bit of sense (And they tend to use it to stop power creep).

Well, if you get that guy who gets his Essence low and does the Magic/'ware shuffle, you can just slap him. Even then, it's awfully tricky juggling the Max, Current, and Initiations.

Points-wise, sure. Assuming hard-maxed Magic and two points of 'ware (since it generally reaches a point of greatly diminishing returns at that point), you save 35 BP. But that comes at a high opportunity cost.

Assume the best-case scenario. You have the typical adept pre-load of synaptic booster: 2, muscle toner: 4, and cybereyes: 3. You awaken as an adept. Yeah, you're 65 points ahead of the guy who started out as an adept. But you have a piddly Magic of 1, and you will have to hustle and spend Karma to get it up to 4, where the first guy started at. I guess you do come out ahead in some ways - 65 points at char-gen is more valuable than the 45 Karma you'll be spending. But you'll start out a lot less powerful than the guy who had the same 'ware and a starting Magic of 4, and then you'll spend more time catching up. So it all depends on whether the extra versatility (and 65 points can give you a lot of that) is worth it. But see, generally the people who hard max Magic and get two points of 'ware are NOT versatile - they are hyper-specialists. So becoming an adept saves you points, but at the expense of what most people see as the point of being a cyber-adept.

Now, some people see it as "If I become an adept, I can start out as a full-bore sammie with an Essence of 1 or so, and have avenues to potentially improve beyond upgrading my 'ware. If you have that attitude, it might actually work better. Because it is a good strategy. Sammies improve with nuyen, while adepts improve with Karma. Having two ways to get better (vertically, rather than laterally) lets such a character become potentially quite powerful. But generally, you will only get there in a high-powered or long-running campaign.

Mages, on the other hand, are hosed. You have to find a tutor or mentor to pick up all of the magical skills that you will need, and do the same for any spells. Compared to a starting mage, you are incredibly far behind. The cost to become even average is daunting.

And you could wind up with something nearly useless, such as astral sight or a spell knack, something not even worth keeping that last point of Essence for. That's the thing - it's all GM control (although personally, I think what the character awakens into should be worked out with the player ahead of time. A GM who doesn't like the quality should just refuse to allow it, not screw over the player with passive-aggressive crap like giving him something completely different than what the player wants, or is interested in playing).

The Problem with Latent Awakening is that the player doesn't have choice of what powers that they develop. It's at the GM's discretion what kind of awakened character the character becomes and even what power they start with.

It's kind of a silly quality, period. You shouldn't have random time-released things in chargen.

idk - I think it plays well with the trope of being special, but noone knows it yet - what's that called again? Like any nobody in any story who turns out to be the heir/powerful mage/world savior etc.

Not to my taste, sure, but I'm sure there are plenty of players who like that sort of idea.

I suppose, except for the actual mechanics (start at nothing, need huge karma infusion just to get to up 'normal'). *shrug* I just think if that's what you're dying to play, pay the extra 10BP and just fluff it as 'hasn't arrived yet'.

Yeah, I will agree with you that the costs are skewed...for a few BP more you can have so much more...so you're probably right, almost noone will end up taking it...I really like the idea of Spell Knack, too, but...

I'm not to fond of those time-released qualities either. I've had one player pick the one where it says he's going to die or something silly. There are very few players that pick time-released stuff or even something like In Debt that are doing it solely for character roleplaying. They see it as a BP boost so jump on it.

As for handling essence loss, I struggle with it when it comes up in my games. I think the fairest thing for the group, is to track the pre-essence loss stat (augmented, if you will) with the current. That way, if you have magic 5, but augmented to 3 due to essence loss, to raise that from 3 to 4 you really are paying karma for raising it from 5 to 6. The individual player won't like that, but in a group that has a magic user that paid for his 6 and doesn't have essence loss, its balanced.

The spell knack thing may be an exception, as I don't think you can ever raise that, so you don't have to worry. And back to latent, I think if someone is going to cyber the hell out of themselves and pick latent awakening, that 1 needs to take essence loss into account at chargen. In my games, I think its just easier to not allow it. But, just thinking about a <1 essence sammy taking latent awakening, I just don't see me allowing that unless they have already bought up their magic to 6 (or would it be 7?) so when they awakening, they could legally have a 1 magic.

Well, Latents all unavoidably 'pre-burn-out' if you go below Essence 1, already. And if you're at Essence 1, your Max Magic is 1, so your only move is to Initiate. It's pretty rough, and almost entirely up to the GM. I just think it's a needless and unfun complication.

Funny, I see it as an opportunity for character development. The only ones taking the Quality are the ones who want the challenge of playing such a character.

Which happen to be few and far between, in my experience.

The last time I created a challenging character in my group, the GM found a way to "fix" it, which somewhat ruined the mystique around my character and tossed out the hours of chargen time I invested in it.

You really need a player that embraces such a challenge and a GM that "gets it", to be successful. And even so, depending on the group, it could still fail if the other players are tweaked beyond believe and don't appreciate someone playing a character that has some challenges. So, I guess you also need a group of players that are okay with a character that is purposely built unoptimized.

I'm sure all of this does happen in real life, but it has to be quite rare.

Generally you are in Character Building mode, or Character Improvement mode. The base Character Building mode uses BP, and the Character Improvement uses Karma. So initially you can go entirely by whether or not you are suing BP or Karma purchases. (Using the RC karmagen makes this very confusing, and is one of the sources of the uber builds you can get out of karmagen).

For Character Builds, the progression is purchasing Attributes, then purchasing gear and it's consequences. Obviously there are ways to switch the order to maximize the results, that's up to your GM to judge.

Most of the Char Gen tools start out in Character Build mode, and focus in BP, and don't necessarily do as good a job switching to Character Improvement mode. It two different sets of rules and exceptions so it's understandable they don't do both well or consistently.

This is very true. I am fortunate that I have a Great GM and a great bunch of players with which to explore character concepts.

Well, the thing is, the premise of the game kind of supports that playstyle. It's a game of shady mercs doing highly dangerous work, in a world where magic and technology can make people superhuman - and where, as a shadowrunner, you need that kind of edge simply to survive.

Not that the game doesn't have the scope and flexibility to support a wide variety of playstyles, but you should talk to the other players first. Figure out how they might have met/rescued/befriended your character, and what kind of relationship they have. If you just take your "challenging" character and plunk it down in the middle with everyone else's chromed sammies, katana-wielding adepts, and cigar-chewing troll combat mages, they will probably be a bit nonplussed at your character, and not know quite what to do.

I guess I don't agree with the game supporting only highly specialized and optimized characters. I think that is a product of the group of players (how you fit with them, statistically) and what sort of opponents your GM is running at you. If the average die pool is, say 8, of both the group and the opponents, then you have a lot more freedom to build a broader skill set. If the average is 12-14, then yeah, there's more specialization needed. But, unless the opponents are also tweaked like that, you can be effective in the group without being tweaked as much.